Glasgow, Scotland -- Tsumanga Studios, games developer and publisher based in Scotland has opened its doors to a virtual world game for girls, based on the hugely popular Winx Club brand created and produced by Rainbow.

Winx Club is a global phenomenon, the number one intellectual property for girls, across the whole of Europe and beyond. The original animated television series -- now in its fifth season with a total of 130 episodes available - is also a huge licensing success with a comprehensive range of branded products including feature films, DVDs, toys, clothing, books and videogames.

Tsumanga Studios is working with Rainbow to design and co-produce a “virtual world” based upon Winx Club. The game will be released for the current generation of mobile phones, tablets and web browsers, ensuring it is accessible to the widest possible audience. It will be an interactive online world, allowing girls aged 7-10 worldwide, to play, collaborate, learn and discover. The game will be made available in English, Italian, Russian and French languages initially.

Tsumanga and Rainbow promise that the Winx Club virtual world will be innovative, safe to play, fun, and offer educational, offline, craft and ecological elements which can be enjoyed outside the game. The Winx Club virtual world will be entirely free to play, and offer subscriptions for premium content and extended game play.

"The digital games represent a strategic new media for Winx Club, that will complete its well established multimedia platform of CP applications" says Iginio Straffi.

Rainbow’s Chairman and CEO adds: “We’re very excited to start this new collaboration with Tsumanga Studios. Winx has all the potential assets to become a digital game success.”

“We're very excited to be working with Rainbow on project with the popularity and potential of Winx Club,” says Graeme Harvey, the founder and CEO of Tsumanga Studios.

Girls play far more online games than boys: in the US market, over 50 percent of the 9.3 million tween girls play online games. Sixty percent of girls under the age of 12 own a mobile phone and prefer MSN Messenger to social networks.

Research shows that having role models is very important for girls aged 7 – 10. The Winx fairies were created to be positive role models to encourage much greater self-esteem in the younger female audience.

The virtual world from Tsumanga will allow Winx fans to explore the world of Magix, meet their favorite characters, join the adventures and be a part of the story.

The plan is to launch the first Winx app (scheduled for Spring 2013) before the full massively multiplayer virtual world is released in Autumn 2013.

Source: Rainbow

Jennifer Wolfe is Director of News & Content at Animation World Network.